Bulletin No. 1, 2016

Familiarity Breeds Interest 43 Will students write better if they learn Chinese through Putonghua? Not necessarily. It’s true that there are considerable differences between spoken Cantonese and written Chinese, and not much between spoken Putonghua and written Chinese. You may say that one who knows Putonghua can skip the procedure of converting to the written language. But will that mean that all Putonghua-speakers can be writers? Writing is not simply transcribing the oral language, and can be enriched only by extensive reading of the classics. In the past, there were selected essays from classical and modern Chinese literature in the Chinese Language syllabuses of primary and secondary schools. Students left school with a good command of the language, though they might not speak fluent Putonghua. What’s your view on abandoning traditional Chinese characters for the simplified ones? The launch of simplified Chinese characters and Romanization of Chinese were aimed at eradicating illiteracy. Is it still an urgent need in Hong Kong nowadays? If it is not, why don’t we start by learning the traditional characters, which will enable us to read ancient literatures, contributing to the continuity of cultural legacies? On the other hand, since simplified characters are widely used in mainland China and its publications, knowledge of it is preferable from a pragmatic point of view. Prof. Cheung Hung-nin Samuel Professor Emeritus of University of California, Berkeley Emeritus Professor of CUHK How about adopting Putonghua as the medium of teaching Chinese language in schools? Similar to the issue of traditional and simplified characters, if there are political considerations behind language policies, I won’t be able to give you an answer. Otherwise it is better to look at the issues rationally. Let us first ask ourselves: why do we have to choose between Putonghua and Cantonese? We should all learn Putonghua since it is the national language. But it doesn’t mean that we should substitute Cantonese with Putonghua. Since Cantonese is the mother tongue of the majority of the Hong Kong population, using it as a medium of instruction is undebatable. Cantonese and Putonghua can co-exist. We love our own language, but there is no need to discriminate against other languages. Many young people today are anxious of the future of Cantonese because they feel that government policies are imposing restrictions and pressure on the language. They react by building up its supremacy and rejecting other languages. The issue will become more complicated if we fail to see the problem for what it is.